Jamaica, New York

JAMAICA, NEW YORK, formerly a village of Queens county, Long Island, New York, U.S.A., but after the 1st of January 1898 a part of the borough of
Queens, New York City. Pop. (1890) 5361. It is served by the Long Island railroad, the lines of which from Brooklyn and Manhattan meet here and then separate to
serve the different regions of the island. 1 King's Park (about 10 acres) comprises the estate of John Alsop King (1788-1867), governor of New York in
1857-1859, from whose heirs in 1897 the land was purchased by the village trustees. In South Jamaica there is a race track, at which meetings are held in the
spring and autumn. The headquarters of the Queens Borough Department of Public Works and Police are in the Jamaica town-hall, and Jamaica is the seat of a city
training school for teachers (until 1905 one of the New York State normal schools). For two guns, a coat, and a quantity of powder and lead, several New
Englanders obtained from the Indians a deed for a tract of land here in September 1655. In March 1657 they received permission from Governor Stuyvesant to found
a town, which was chartered in 1660 and was named Rustdorp by Stuyvesant, but the English called it Jamaica; it was rechartered in 1666, 1686 and 1788. The
village was incorporated in 1814 and reincorporated in 1855. In 1665 it was made the seat of justice of the north riding; in 1683-1788 it was the shire town of
Queens county. With Hempstead, Gravesend, Newtown and Flushing, also towns of New England origin and type, Jamaica was early disaffected towards the provincial
government of New York. In 1669 these towns complained that they had no representation in a popular assembly, and in 1670 they protested against taxation
without representation. The founders of Jamaica were mostly Presbyterians, and they organized one of the first Presbyterian churches in America. At the
beginning of the War of Independence Jamaica was under the control of Loyalists; after the defeat of the Americans in the battle of Long Island (27th August
1776) it was occupied by the British; and until the end of the war it was the headquarters of General Oliver Delancey, who had command of all Long Island.